Since the sort of communication we are talking about on this site is both an art and science it’s not easy to parse how discernment works in all situations. In a rough and ready way, we believe it involves taking the time it to carefully listen and assess where people describe themselves in their life’s journey; it should come as no surprise that this sort of skill involves a lot of patience and focus. This may involve in withholding or forbearing making judgments too quickly or until enough context is developed to enlarge the perspective. Here we mean discernment in terms of needing to make wise judgements (or interpretations) of their conceptual meanings based on what one hears and how that 
fits with what one observes in their body language in that communicational and conversational situation.
Yet in this conversational and relational approach there can be a place for proclaiming and explaining the most important and revolutionary news ever told. It’s just that in this proclamation and explanation there needs to be paradoxically a lot of listening--and often in conversational situations the listening comes first. And that listening doesn’t just mean hearing words, but involves an active attempt to understand what they mean to say.
The sort of listening we are talking is a multi-tasking skill. It involves consciously attempting to understand the verbal and non-verbal symbols and cues that are being sent your way. That is, besides the content of the concepts conveyed in their speech you would be reading their facial expressions and tone of voice to get a sense of what they feel about that content. The sort of aggressive listening we suggest doesn’t come naturally for many people, although there are some individuals who are socially gifted and seem to understand (both sympathetically and emphatically) more than others. The rest of us by the grace of God will have to work hard to get better at this.
But these skills can be learned by persistent investigation (often in one-on-one tutored situations) and by hard-work and discipline. That is critical because your interpretation of the deliverances of that input (your discernment) informs what you do and say in that phase, where it is befitting to do so.
We will be placing various resources in this section to help with that, but, again, probably the best way to learn these skills is by watching someone regularly who has the skills and gifts. More to come!